Hacker News: squishington

New comment by squishington in "US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire"

squishington — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 08:43:26 +0000

This is a lovely notion that most well adjusted people can get behind, but if you've ever had a person with narcissistic personality disorder in your life, you'll understand that they need to create conflict to emotionally regulate themselves. Unfortunately these people tend to acquire wealth and power, and are never satisfied. Then the rest of us have to deal with it.

New comment by squishington in "Why New Zealand is seeing an exodus of over-30s"

squishington — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 08:09:10 +0000

Howard era policies have strongly contributed to the housing problems in Australia today. His policies were short sighted.

New comment by squishington in "Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?"

squishington — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 12:38:23 +0000

Openwrt with the policy based routing package can do this, and is simple to set up.

New comment by squishington in "EmacsConf 2025"

squishington — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 04:14:09 +0000

Could you expand on your comment a bit please? I've not heard of Lem before now. How does it compare to Emacs? Also your comment about cultural leadership. I'm not sure what you're referring to specifically. (Asking in good faith out of curiosity).

New comment by squishington in "Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts"

squishington — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 11:13:00 +0000

My understanding is that the optimal scenario is taking an SSRI in combination with therapy. The SSRI adds flexibility for the brain to respond to therapy and envisage new possibilities. If you don't include therapy, you've just established a new baseline to habituate to.

New comment by squishington in "Students fight back over course taught by AI"

squishington — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 08:21:01 +0000

I was drawn to engineering by the joy of learning and problem solving. The pain of puzzling over a difficult problem, then the ecstatic release when you figure it out and get it working. I don't understand why someone would want to give that up. It gives meaning to the work.

New comment by squishington in "Once Australia's second priciest city, Melbourne has become more affordable"

squishington — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 07:51:21 +0000

Competition at the $500 per week range is intense, because there are many people who can't afford more than that.

New comment by squishington in "Carlo Rovelli’s radical perspective on reality"

squishington — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:36:52 +0000

I think language does us a disservice here. I'm reminded of Korzybski's work in Science and Sanity. The interpretation of "truth" depends on which level of abstraction you are operating on. "Every statement is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense". The term "reality" implies a perceiver, and that perceiver is generating "reality" based on their neurological instrument, which has its own biases based on its prior experience and genetics.

New comment by squishington in "The graduate 'jobpocalypse': Where have all the entry-level jobs gone? [video]"

squishington — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 13:12:47 +0000

Thanks for your input. I have a similar feeling about general economic matters. I like Gary Stevenson's perspective on this. When the numbers say the economy is doing well, but you talk to "ordinary people" and they say they feel their living standard is declining, which source do you believe? All inputs should be considered to try to get an accurate picture.

New comment by squishington in "The graduate 'jobpocalypse': Where have all the entry-level jobs gone? [video]"

squishington — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:32:54 +0000

For what it's worth, one of my uni lecturers in my final uni year told me that over half the cohort for that year would never work in engineering because there weren't enough jobs. He said the uni didn't want him imparting that information but he thought it was unethical. I'm sure he had a historical perspective that informed that advice. I've worked with older guys who got engineering jobs without degrees and taught themselves FPGA design on the job in the 80s and 90s. There's no chance of that happening now.

New comment by squishington in "The graduate 'jobpocalypse': Where have all the entry-level jobs gone? [video]"

squishington — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:19:50 +0000

My feeling is there are often factors which are not captured in job market statistics, which is why it's important to listen to the experience of grads seeking jobs. When I graduated in 2018, it took me a whole year to land a job (graduated with first class honours in electronics engineering in Australia, with 7 months overseas experience working for a chip design company in germany and a research scholarship at university). I came across job interviewers who had very irrational approaches to hiring, which I suspect was partly because they had too many applicants and were overworked processing them. One medical hardware company turned me down because they said I was overqualified and would get bored and quit. Overqualified as a grad. What a joke. I just needed a job before the next round of grads came out and left me forever shut out of my future field. It was a massive shock to my system as I had done nothing but work hard for years to get top marks and industry experience, and it still wasn't satisfactory (also building projects to showcase in interviews). I feel for new grads.

New comment by squishington in "For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades"

squishington — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 13:05:17 +0000

The left and right have more in common with each other than they realise. Many of the distinctions become irrelevant when you realise it's really workers against the power of massive capital.

New comment by squishington in "Show HN: HumanAlarm – Real people knock on your door to wake you up"

squishington — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 03:55:21 +0000

Sorry, it wasn't my intention to demean the project. I can just see a humorous aspect to it. The human element reminded me of Mancierge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4WrPkKc2Wg

New comment by squishington in "Children and young people's reading in 2025"

squishington — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:06:26 +0000

I enjoyed reading fiction until I studied electrical engineering. After that I felt that fiction was a waste of time. On a cognitive level I don't think it is, but I think the feeling comes from having been instilled with a sense that reading has to involve some degree of learning. As though everything I do has to involve some self betterment. It's frustrating and I feel a sense of loss about it.

New comment by squishington in "Show HN: HumanAlarm – Real people knock on your door to wake you up"

squishington — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 02:30:12 +0000

This sounds a bit like a Tim and Eric Cinco product.

New comment by squishington in "Plex Security Incident"

squishington — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:34:28 +0000

The official jellyfin android app also provides 'remote' functionality (skip episodes, browse library, change volume etc.). It works well for me most of the time, but occasionally it can't find the remote session until I restart the jellyfin instance.

New comment by squishington in "We’re Not So Special: A new book challenges human exceptionalism"

squishington — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:07:20 +0000

Korzybski claimed that the most significant difference was the human ability of time-binding.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Cbqr9NcFDtjvM6zC4/time-bindi...

New comment by squishington in "IMDB Terminal Browser"

squishington — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 05:07:30 +0000

Cool project. I've been using this IMDB interface and really like its simplicity: https://github.com/zyachel/libremdb

New comment by squishington in "Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy"

squishington — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:55:59 +0000

Please don't spread misinformation like this. It can stop people from seeking professional help. When people seek therapy, they are taking ownership over their emotions and actions, because they want to change their internal state in a healthy way (as opposed to escaping negative feelings with substance abuse, for example). Earlier this year I would suffer flight responses in public due to the effects of PTSD. I was able to significantly mitigate this (nearly gone) by seeing a therapist who practises EMDR. And sometimes people do need their feelings validated, which is an important part of healing from abuse. It's about rebuilding trust.

New comment by squishington in "Is the A.I. Boom Turning Into an A.I. Bubble?"

squishington — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 07:41:16 +0000

This interpretation seems accurate to me. I think the big concern is what happens once the asset and passive wealth class have squeezed the working class dry. And the governments don't have enough wealth for a welfare state solution. What is the point of working hard and smart and trying to innovate as a young person without family wealth when you can't even achieve basic economic security.